Behavior-based Mobile Robot Control on a Hybrid CPU-FPGA Architecture – iB2C on SoPC

Más información sobre el libro

Mobile robots are increasingly utilized in complex scenarios, necessitating sophisticated control systems while adhering to safety requirements. This complexity poses challenges for developers in tracking systems and ensuring reliability amidst potential external errors. Behavior-based control paradigms, particularly integrated Behavior-based Control, have emerged as effective solutions. However, existing implementations are software-based, leading to conflicts between real-time performance and limitations in energy and space. Additionally, the underlying operating systems complicate verification and debugging, introducing further error sources. This work proposes implementing iB2C networks on a System-on-Programmable-Chip (SoPC), bridging CPU-based systems and FPGAs. This architecture facilitates event-based reactions and ensures real-time capability and determinism for safety-critical aspects, while still benefiting from a high-level environment suitable for resource-constrained mobile robots. The study derives specifics for implementing and verifying iB2C-based control systems in VHDL and discusses extending the architecture to SoPCs. It presents architectural principles for integrating both domains and addresses interface considerations. A heuristic for early-stage CPU-FPGA partitioning is also developed. The findings are validated through practical examples, demonstrating that the proposed control architecture meets both